Nintendo of Japan Outlines What It's Up To This Year

At an investors meeting in Tokyo today, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata was nice enough to outline what the company intended to do with all those funds this year.

Included in the outline were Wii RPGs The Last Story from Mistwalker and Nintendo as well as Xenoblade, formerly known as Monado, from Monolith Soft (behind Disaster: Day of Crisis and Baten Kaitos). The latter is set for sometime this spring.

The Nintendo/Team Ninja (of Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden fame) mash-up Metroid: Other M has been listed for "summer 2010" in Japan, and the game's official Web site has now gone live. Not much to see at the moment apart from an image that looks pulled from the E3 reveal trailer, but it might be worth keeping your eyes on down the line.

Gamefreak was mentioned to be working on the next new mainline Pokemon game, said to feature a new land, new mechanics and, of course, new critters to trap and cage fight. Golden Sun DS will be launching this year as well.

Iwata also mentioned that the company plans to show off Super Mario Galaxy 2, Zelda Wii and the curious Vitality Sensor at E3. Unsurprising but still nice to hear as we'd probably be more concerned if they didn't plan on bringing this stuff to the show.

Let's hope Nintendo of Wherever You Are unveils their plans for all this goodness sooner rather than later.

User Comments (29)

Let's hope that Other M's release date in the US is ballparked soon, though, judging from NoJ's Summer release, it seems GameStop might not be too off. Also, this year's E3 should be awesome, especially if we get to see more of the latest Zelda...

Metroid Other M is going to be a Wii seller. Im predicting the Wii is going to once again fly off the shelves after its release. I cant wait to see what Team Ninja pulls off with that game. Im guessing the best Metroid sice Zero.

I have very high expectations for Other M. I'm not that much into JRPGs so The Last Story isn't that interesting to me but I'll still probably take a look at it. The Last Story melody on the website sounds awesome, though.

@Metroid_Fan: E3 for Nintendo will be about Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Zelda, since Iwata said that Zelda would be out this year, so both should be shown at E3. Now, of those two, only SMG 2 will definitely be playable. Zelda Wii might be on video display only depending on how far along the game really is...

Wow, Metroid's pretty empty for now.I can't believe they are actually making this Vitality Sensor.I mean, measuring the pulse during games like Metroid Prime could be cool (I had a hard time aiming at the end boss because I was literally shaking too much), but I don't wanna waste my whole left hand by sticking some japanese mousetrap on it.

Galaxy 2 seems like a bad choice for holiday release. I'm sure it'll be great, but it's not quite as exciting to get a straightforward sequel at the end of the year. Hopefully Zelda will be ready for then, too.

Prime 3 and Trilogy were released in August whereas Galaxy in December. As such, I wouldn't be surprised if Other M and Galaxy 2 followed their prequels. I expect Zelda to be released in 2011, as Nintendo's Q4 ends in March.

Metroid is traditionally made for a Western audience. Is it impossible for that to be released earlier than the Japan date? Any bets? E3 will be focused on Mario and Zelda, so maybe that means Metroid will already be out. It's wishful thinking on my part, of course.

If not, I don't see Zelda coming out until 2011. Nintendo is most likely not going to fit all three in the last 4 or 5 months of the year.

Nintendo might also like to position Mario Galaxy 2 as a Christmas release so that people remember how much fun they had with New Super Mario Bros. Wii the last holiday season. It could work.

My big question is whether Nintendo will go right for a NSMBW sequel or convert another franchise back to 2D gameplay. My vote is cooperative Metroid 2D, but I could see a new Zelda 4 swords that is much improved over the previous versions. Maybe at least we'll get a 2D metroid update to Metroid 2 in WiiWare? It's cool how it doesn't feel as impossible as it did before NSMBW.

eh? so they changed the name of Monado to Xenoblade?strange, but oh well.and i didn't really expect Generation 5 of Pokemon to be coming so soon, but will it be DS again or the new handheld?or is it for Wii? now i'm curious about those new mechanics

I'm very excited for all of these titles. Monolith is awesome, they made the Xenogears and Xenosaga games as well, so I like where this new title reference is going. The Last Story has the potential to be an exciting IP, and of course, who doesn't love the hell out of Metroid?